Cu Chi Cu Chi Coo, where are you?

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We decided to go straight from the train station in Ho Chi Minh to the Cu Chi tunnels, to avoid the crowds and the main heat of the day. We thought we'd seen the craziest traffic possible when we were in Hanoi. Silly us! Moped madness soared to a whole new level in Ho Chi Minh City! With a population of over 6 million we found out that 4 million of them own a moped or motorbike! Even at 6am the city was heaving with massed ranks of mopeds at traffic light junctions waiting for the count-down red light to get to zero and glide, like a shoal of fish, off into the massed bipping and weaving of hundreds of other bikes. Yes, they did actually stopped at the lights, more or less, a few would slip through every so often, especially if they were at the edges of the throng. Most people were wearing face masks to protect them from the smog and pollution. Many of the girls had long white gloves covering their arms and matching socks, with one toe-hole gaps to allow for wearing of flip flops (or jangles or thongs - learnt a bit of Aussie Kiwi language on my trip - yisss!), covering their feet and legs. This all in an attempt to try and keep their skin white rather than tanned! White girls go to tanning salons or slaver themselves in fake tan in the West! I guess you always want what you haven't got.

We hadn't had any breakfast, so we stopped off at the equivalent of a motorway services Little Chef. On offer was a breakfast of watery noodle soup with slices of meat (think it was beef) floating about it and plates of fresh salad (some water hyacynth leaves I think) to put in the bowls with the soup. Obviously this wasn't exactly veggie fare, I had some chocolate chip cookies in my bag so had those for brekkie instead, sipped my diet coke and then made a trip to the salubrious, delicately scented, masses of soft, lovely toilet paper 'happy house'! I'm exaggerating somewhat 😉

As we drove through the lush, green countryside towards Co Chi we noticed a change in the type of vegetation and crops growing. There were more and more palms and the fields had loads of different types of fruits and vegetables growing. One large, weird looking fruit we saw was a kind of zeppelin airship shape with little bumps all over the skin. It was called a jack fruit. We also passed a large rubber plantation with trees in rows, like our commercial pine forests. The trees had spiral cuts all round their trunks that were taped up with different coloured bands to stop the rubber oozing out.

As we arrived at the Cu Chi Tunnels site it seemed we were not the first to arrive. Fortunately there weren't that many people already there, meaning we were able to progress around this impressive site without having to wait for crowds of people at each point of interest, as must happen later on in the day. To get to the tunnels area you have to pass through a big, modern, underground passage (I think it must go under the road we'd come in on). At the entrance we read the rules:

"With a view to ensuring the safety of visitors at Cu Chi Tunnel, we hereby offer the following rules:

1. Visitors should strictly comply with our attendants' instructions. During the visit you should not leave your group or go down the tunnel alone without an attendant.

2. You should not go down the tunnel in the following cases:

Visitors have a past medical history about a cardio vascular disease, high blood pressure or such respitory diseases as asthma (ho hum, I don't have asthma, no not at all!), tuberculosis..., arthritis, rheumatism.

Vistitors are afraid of darkness and narrow place. Visitors of old age (70 years old or more).

Visitors get drunk on alcohol or beer."

For the first part of the tour we saw a mock up of a cut away section of the tunnels, a map describing the area where the fighting had taken place and an absolutely fascinating old black and white video made some time just after the war ended. This was the film I'd seen variously described in peoples comments on the Tripadvisor website before I left for Vietnam as 'anti American propaganda, pass it by and get on with enjoying the rest of the site', 'Ignore the anti American video, it's actually quite amusing', 'educational, though pretty much one-sided', 'You may have to endure the introductory propaganda film about the evils of America'. What do these people expect?! They have been fed the US version of the war. Do they really expect the Vietnamese version to be the same?

Phat, our tour guide, explained the basics of the war. He described three main groups, the northern Viet Cong, the southern Vietnamese soldiers working for the Government and the civilians, who he described as neutral, though I'm pretty sure they would have had opinions or sided with one or other of the two groups. He said there were three main campaigns and rattled off the dates (I will never understand how people remember information like this - I have such a bad memory). He described the bloody Tet offensive, Tet being the festival celebrating the lunar new year, kind of equivalent to Christmas for the Vietnamese. What a time to start an attact. He talked about the 17th parallel, being the divide between the north and the south and the strategic position of Cu Chi during the war, along with other nearby districts, known collectively as the 'iron triangle'. The Saigon River also flows very close by. On the map red indicated the liberated areas, black the US military, yellow the strategic areas and pink a combination of strategic and liberated areas. Reportedly the Viet Cong soldiers extended the tunnels until they reached beneath the US army's 25th Division, Mekong Delta headquarters! From here they were able to spring sneaky and devastating surprise attacks on their enemy.

Describing the tunnels, first built during the French war then expanded during the American war, Phat explained there were 250km of tunnels consisting of three levels with openings at various points of only 22cm x 42cm! The first level, 1-3m deep, was for living (with rooms for dining, cooking, working and storage), the second level, 4-6m deep, was for fighting (with bamboo traps and secret turns) and the 3rd level, 8m deep, had the escape exits to the Saigon River and a metal triangular bunker for longer battles when they were unable to escape via the river or upwards to higher levels. There were various thin air-hole bores to the surface that were hidden by termite mounds. There were also fresh water wells accessible in the tunnels. The ground is red clay, very solid and was virtually impregnable in the lower levels from any mortar attacks. In the rainy season the tunnel conditions would have been virtually unbareable, with snakes, insects and disease making things worse for those 'living' underground. Although they were underground for long periods they did manage to come out to the surface and move to other areas, so weren't underground for months on end as far as I could make out. Phat also described how the Vietnamese soldiers tried to disguise their scent from the Alsatian tracker dogs used by the Americans by sprinkling pepper near the entrances. Unfortunately this wasn't a good tactic as the dogs would smell the pepper and go straight to the site, a better tactic was used later, using the same soap as the Americans to confuse the dogs.

And so to the much maligned video. I found this absolutely fascinating. Jerky black and white footage from the time, with patriotic music as a background and an English speaking narrator. It starts by setting a scene of the Cu Chi countryside; peaceful, gentle and beautiful and describing people visiting the area for recreaction as well as those living and working in the area as farmers. The film then moves to images of distruction caused by the invasion by America with the narrators words: 'They fired into everything, women, children, plants, animals, even Buddhist temples'. Next comes praise for a few particular local heros, one guy, a farmer set hidden traps using his knowledge of animal trapping and set home made bombs. He was awarded an American Killer Hero award. Another example given was that of a school girl who chose to follow the soldiers, using rifles and grenades to kill the enemy. She was also awarded an American Killer Hero award. The narration then went on to praise the local civilians who were determined to try and stay in the area, farming in the day and fighting as guerillas at night. When the Amreicans tried to make Cu Chi a no go area the guerillas moved underground, creating a unique way to surprise the enemy, showing themselves in one spot then scooting off through the tunnel system to emerge behind the enemy and gun them down via cunning ambushes. The footage showed Vietnamese soldiers fighting in the chest high, open trenches attached to some of the tunnels. Eventually the Americans realised the tunnels were being used and tried to flush out the soldiers using Philipinos as tunnel rats, who often suffered brutal, horrific deaths via the traps that had been set.

After seeing the film we headed off along the trail where a guy showed us one of the tiny tunnel entrances (only 22cm x 42cm) hidden by leaf litter and totally undetectable unless you knew where it was. He then took took the lid off, jumped into the hole, held the lid, covered with dry leaves, over his head and popped down into the tunnel, becoming completely invisible to anyone who didn't know he was there. Then we were asked if any of us wanted to have a go. 'Yes, me!' said Lottie quickly. Only two of us were either thin enough or brave enough to have a go and Gino was first to try squeezing himself into the tiny hole. He made it in with a bit of wriggling. Then it was my turn. I quickly jumped in (good job I'd been dieting before coming out to Vietnam!), held the lid with the leaf litter above my head, posed for a couple of photos then popped myself down into the hole pulling the lid down over my head. It was smooth, dark, cool and smelled of fusty leaf litter inside and wasn't as scary as I'd imagined. What an amazing experience! And how well hidden, it's no wonder the Americans had no clue how they kept getting ambushed so easily.

We then went to see a demonstration of a bamboo pit trap that had been adapted from those used to trap tigers and other animals in the past. The large, rectangular pit had sharpened bamboo poles stuck in the bottom at angles and these were covered by a pivoted trap cover. When someone stepped on the trap door they would fall into the pit and get skewered on the bamboo, then the trap door would swing shut over them hiding it again (though you would think the sound of screams would give the hiding place away).

As we walked along the pathways through the lush, green jungle of palms and other vegetation we saw some other entrances with steps down into the tunnels, some of the air-holes in the termite mounds and the fighting trenches we had seen earlier in the film. We saw two different tunnel entrance styles, round from the French war period and rectangular from the American war. I wasn't clear on the difference between these two types of entance but I'm guessing improvements were made. We also saw a mock up of the area where soldiers were sometimes able to surface. Both Vietnamese men and women fought and the uniforms, Phat explained, were black for night fighting and green or combat khaki for day time fighting. We also saw some tanks on display, one with a very obvious bullet hole in it's barrel. Some of the crators left by B52 bombing raids were still very evident as we walked around the site. One area showed the living quarters, including a kitchen where, to hide their location, they filtered the smoke from cooking fires along tubes making the smoke seep out undetected and far away from where they were actually hiding.

The next section showed demonstrations of self-made weapons that the farmers had adapted from their animal trapping. Here there were traps made of bamboo or metal work, most intended to trap a man's leg causing huge pain, alerting soldiers to their presence where they could be finished off . We also saw a door trap that would close on any victims gorging them with barbed metal spikes! We saw some figures that showed how the soldiers made new bombs and adapted and used old ones. This dangerous work was carried out in atrocious conditions and must have required extreme bravery. They had to memorise where the bombs had been hidden, maps could have fallen into the hands of the enemy, and the reason for the no straying off the paths became clear when we found out that there are still some unexploded bombs left in the countryside around Co Chi and occaisionally some poor person accidently steps on one setting it off! What a terrible legacy to remain in your beautiful countryside.

We arrived at an area where guns from the American war era had been set up, and for the price of $2 per bullet, minimum 8 bullets, you could have a go at firing an AK45 at a target. At first it seemed very disrespectful for tourists to have 'fun' firing guns at this site, considering the horror and deaths that had occurred here. However, after hearing the guns being fired and the noise they made, it did give a very good impression of what it might have been like to be holed up at the Co Chi tunnels.

Then to the bit I'd really been keen to see, a 40m section of tunnel that had been widened a bit to allow us fatso tourists to go down and experience what it was like actually crawling along inside them. There were exit holes along this section for anyone who got the jitters and couldn't carry on any further. I set off directly behind the guide who scootled off pretty quickly and I was determined to keep up and not get lost. What I didn't realise was that he had the only light down there and the others following us were finding it hard to keep up and were left in the dark! Sorry guys! A few of us managed to make it all the way to the end and what a relief it was to see the light at the end of the twisting and turning, dark tunnel! What an amazing experience and what respect it gave you for the endurance and bravery of the Vietnamese who could spend weeks down there hiding from the enemy.

I was completely blown away by the Cu Chi tunnels, a vivid testament to the ingenuity and perserverence of the Vietnamese people that eventually helped them win the war against the vast technical superiority of the Americans.

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